UOWD students’ documentary wins award at Dubai Students Film Festival

Thursday, 03 May, 2012

A documentary entitled ‘Freedom is...’ produced by UOWD’s Amra Notun Bangladesh Expat Association won the Best Script/Story Award at the 2nd Dubai Students Film Festival (DFSF) organised by Dubai Men’s College in Academic City on 2 May.

The film made by students from the University of Wollongong in Dubai, beat 60 other entries and was the only non-Emirati entry in the competition.

“The film emerged from a project which was part of a fund-raising effort during the Bangladesh National Day celebrations at the University to help needy high school students to pursue education,” said Zeenath Khan, the club’s founder and a lecturer at UOWD. “The film portrays students’ idea of freedom through enactment. The club linked this to the fund-raising project because to every young person freedom is to be able to study.”

The documentary was a group effort by members of the Bangladesh Expat Association. It was directed by Ashiqur Rehman, with Irfan ul Haque as videographer, Ikram ul Haque as editor and Zeenath Khan as content supervisor.

“When we first started, it was meant to be a one-minute film, but the enthusiasm of the group drove it to be expanded into a documentary with a strong message,” said director Ashique Rehman. “We are finance and accounting students and this was our first film. We are pleasantly surprised by the award. I think team spirit is behind the success of this project.”

‘Freedom is…’ is a silent film in which students have enacted their definitions of freedom. There are subtitles and text narration to help the viewer understand the theme and sequence.“Given the fact that UOWD does not have any film-making program nor movie equipment and the team members are finance, accounting, computer science students, this was a unique and extraordinary achievement,” added Zeenath Khan.